History of the course[edit]

Horse racing was popular in Liverpool from at least Tudor times, In the 18th century Nicholas Blundell organised races on the sands at Crosby.^[1]

In 1829, William Lynn, the owner of the Waterloo Hotel in Ranelagh Street, Liverpool, approached the Second Earl of Sefton, William Philip Molyneux, whose nickname was 'Lord Dashalong', about leasing land to organise flat racing.

Lord Sefton liked racing, so he agreed. He laid the foundation stone on 7 February 1829, and placed a container of sovereigns inside the footings.^[2] Lynn built a grandstand in time for the first meeting at Aintree racecourse on 7 July 1829. The opening race was the Croxteth Stakes over 1 mile 2 furlongs, and was won by Mufti.^[2] In 1835 Lynn organised hurdle racing, which was a great success, especially when a well-known, rider, Captain Martin Becher, agreed to take part and rode a horse named Vivian to two victories. The story goes that Becher told Lynn about the Great St. Albans Steeplechase, a four-mile point-to-point race across country, which was first run in 1830. This caught Lynn's imagination and he decided that he wanted a similar race at Aintree.

With Becher's help Lynn organised the Liverpool Grand Steeplechase, first run on 29 February 1836. There were ten runners, to be ridden by gentlemen riders only, all carrying twelve stone, with the winner, sold if demanded. for two hundred sovereigns. Captain Becher (after whom Becher's Brook is named) rode The Duke to victory. The winner was owned by Mr Sirdfield, landlord of the George Inn at Great Crosby. Some racing historians regard this 1836 race as the first Grand National, but most favour the 1839 event as the inaugural one. The Duke won again in 1837, Sir William in 1838. There is even some disagreement as to the venue for the 1836 to 1838 races, with the nearby Maghull (which was opened in 1827 by a landowner, John Formby) having its supporters.^[3]

By 1839 the aristocracy was taking an interest: Lords Derby, Eglinton, Wilton, Sefton and Lord George Bentinck backed a national racing event at Aintree. The race was named the 'Grand Liverpool Steeplechase' and advertised as being "four miles across country" – though starting and finishing on the established racecourse. There were 29 obstacles, including a stone wall five feet high, and about a mile from the stands a "strong paling, next a rough, high jagged hedge, and lastly a brook about six feet wide." As the runners approached that obstacle, Captain Becher led the field on Conrad, who hit the obstacle hard causing Becher to fall into the brook. As he came out of the brook, Becher is reputed to have said that "water is no damned use without brandy!"^[4] Lottery, ridden by Jem Mason, won at 9/1, followed by Seventy-Four and Paulina, both 12/1. The 6/1 favourite, The Nun, failed to finish. There were seventeen runners. That first 'National' attracted a crowd of about 50,000.

In the following years the race became very popular, though William Lyn's health suffered and his interest in racing lessened. Another member of the syndicate, Edward William Topham, who was also a racing handicapper, took over as the leading influence at Aintree. In 1843 he turned the 'National' from a weight-for-age race into a handicap. The race officially became the 'Grand National' in 1847; the following year Topham took on the lease of the course from Lord Sefton.^[3]

The Grand National, and with it Aintree racecourse grew in popularity throughout the second half of the 19th century. The 'National' was, by a long way, the most valuable and most important race in the national hunt calendar.

The 1914 Grand National was held a few months before the start of the First World War; the 1915 race was also run at Aintree but a year later Aintree was requisitioned by the War Office, so a substitute race, named the 'Racecourse Association Steeplechase' was held in 1916, 1917 and 1918 at Gatwick (on the site where the airport was later built) in Sussex. The Grand National returned to Aintree in 1919.^[5]

During the Second World War there was one race won by BOGSCAR in 1940^[6] at Aintree as the course had been requisitioned for use as a storage depot with hundreds of servicemen from the USA being stationed there. The course opened again on 4 April 1946 for the Spring Meeting, with the Grand National being run on the Friday, the second day of the three-day meeting. It was first run on Saturday in 1947.^[7]

In 1949 Messrs. Tophams bought the racecourse outright from Lord Sefton after leasing the course for 100 years. To celebrate this purchase, the Topham Trophy, a handicap steeplechase over 2 miles 6 furlongs of the Grand National course was introduced as the main race on the first day of the National meeting.^[8]

In December 1953 the Mildmay steeplechase course was opened with smaller versions of the Grand National fences. This two-day fixture was the first all National Hunt meeting ever staged at Aintree.

In July 1964 Mrs Topham announced that she intended selling the racecourse to a property developer, Capital & Counties, to build housing. This started the era of the "last Grand National" which lasted for about twenty years. There was talk of the Grand National being transferred to Doncaster.^[8]

1973 saw the last Grand National meeting run by the Topham family as Aintree was bought by a local property developer, Bill Davies. A low ebb was reached in 1975 when the attendance at the Grand National was the lowest anyone could remember, largely because Bill Davies tripled admission prices. The National meeting was revived in 1976 under Ladbrokes' management and a new clerk of the course, John Hughes (although Bill Davies still owned the course).^[8] The first day of the Spring Meeting saw the final flat race run at Aintree, the Knowsley Stakes over 1 mile 5 furlongs; the final two days, including Grand National day were all National Hunt events. In 1977 all three days of the 'National' meeting were National Hunt for the first time, and have continued to be so.

The uncertainty about the future of the course was finally removed in December 1983 when the Jockey Club bought the course from Bill Davies.^[8]

Most of Aintree's old stands were demolished in 1985, leaving just the County Stand. A temporary stand, the Aintree Stand, was erected. The County Stand was renovated and extended in 1988. Three years later the temporary stands were replaced by a permanent one, opened by and named after the Queen Mother.^[8]

In 1995 Red Rum, the only horse to win the Grand National three times, died in October and was buried near the winning post. A statue to the horse had been unveiled at the course on Grand National day in 1988.

In 1997 part of the County Stand was demolished to prepare for a new grandstand. In 1998 a new stand, named after the Princess Royal, was opened.

2006 saw the start of extensive re-development of the racecourse. A new parade ring, weighing room and winners' enclosure were opened. The old weighing room was turned into a wine bar and museum. A year later two further grandstands were opened, named after the Earl of Derby and Lord Sefton.

In 2015 the old weighing room and winners' enclosure were named 'McCoys' to honour the jockey A. P. McCoy, who had ridden in his final Grand National.^[8]

United States Lines was the trade name of an organization of the United States Shipping Board (USSB), Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) created to operate German liners seized by the United States in 1917. The ships were owned by the USSB and all finances of the line were controlled by the EFC. Among the notable ships of this period was Leviathan, a contender for largest ship in the world for a time.

Eventually the line was sold and went private to continue operating as a transatlantic shipping company that operated cargo services from 1921 to 1989, and ocean liners until 1969—most famously, United States.

1920s[edit]

United States Lines was the trade name of the United States Shipping Board's Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) organization created to operate the large German liners seized by the United States in 1917. By 1925 the corporation operated ex-German liners Leviathan, George Washington, America, Republic and the USSB built ships President Roosevelt and President Harding [de] in service between New York and Europe. On 15 November 1921 the line began operating from piers 3 and 4 at the USSB's Hoboken Terminal which had been the Hamburg America Line facilities in Hoboken, New Jersey seized by the United States and, during the war, operated by the Army as the Hoboken Port of Embarkation.^{[1][2][3][note 1]} The USSB engaged in advertising of the line and its ships through agencies using a "coupon" system to collect names and addresses of interested persons for direct mailings.^[2] All the line's funds were managed by the USSB Treasurer.^[2][4]

The line started with three ships from the tonnage of the failed United States Mail Steamship Company.^[5] One of the founders was Kermit Roosevelt, son of US President Theodore Roosevelt. Two of the ships, America and George Washington, were originally German vessels that had been seized during World War I and kept as reparations. Both America and George Washington made New York–Bremen runs, while Centennial State ran from New York to London.^[6]

The line became well known in the 1920s when two valiant historic rescues were made using their ships President Roosevelt in 1926 and America in 1929 by Captain George Fried.

More ships were acquired in 1922 and renamed after US presidents. The 52,000-ton Leviathan, formerly Vaterland and one of the largest liners in the world, was acquired in 1923.

Throughout the 1920s, the line accumulated debt, and in March 1929, the line was sold to P.W. Chapman Company, and reorganized as the "United States Lines Inc." of Delaware.^[7] The stock market crash made matters worse, and in 1931, the remaining ships were sold to "United States Lines Company" of Nevada. Later in 1931, United States Lines was acquired by the Roosevelt International Mercantile Marine Company, which had been formed earlier in the year from the merger of the Roosevelt Steamship Company and International Mercantile Marine Co.

1930s[edit]

In 1932, Manhattan, at a cost of approximately $21 million, became the first ship actually built for the line, followed the next year by Washington. In 1940, a new America joined them.^[8][9]

In 1932, United States Lines had offered to build a new passenger liner, called U.S. Express Liner, which would also double as a mail ship, and would dramatically decrease the time of delivery for trans-Atlantic mail by catapulting an aircraft when it was within range. Congress refused to give a guarantee on trans-Atlantic postal rates and it was never built.^[10]

During the 1930s, United States Lines' ailing parent company, Roosevelt International Mercantile Marine, began winding down its other operations and merging several of its divisions into United States Lines. United States Lines absorbed the American Line in 1932, the Baltimore Mail Line in 1937, and the American Merchant Line in 1938.